Do you wish to play again?
Well as some people who talk to me know I am working on a neat little single player role-playing game for the BYOND community called "Alandra". As I've been working, and toiling away at free time falling into my disposal, I thought of a curious topic to bring up! Granted, these opinions could help me, or hinder me in my development to Alandra but I thought I'd put them out there.
The topic is "Replay Value". Now for those not in understanding of what Replay Value is, it's a common decision with creating a game(Regardless of specific classification on the type), the decision more greatly applies to single player games, as opposed to multiplayer ones really though.
So what is Replay Value really? Well it's nothing more then just the value of players, and it's fanbase wanting to play through it multiple times. In allot of cases, people play a game once through and never touch it again. Replay Value is basically the odds of placing different objectives, quests, goals into the project to further strengthening them to want to play it more then once(Who knows, maybe a third time is in order!)
What allot of people look at for this kind of thing, is the Non-Linear type of games. Why? Simply being that Non-Linear games have more freedom to explore, and in a number of cases provide multiple outcomes to. This is good for making them want to try it over to see the other outcomes(Curiosity killed the cat, but at least the developer is proud of their work!).
So exploring this thought multiple times over I have come up with some interesting and simply put ways to use Non-Linear, and BYOND's engine to add to the replay value.
1. Provide different classes/races, each with a different story setting.
2. Give the players freedom to express, and choose ways of interacting during quests, story sessions, or common citizen interactions!
3. Give specific outcomes depending on their statistics(Good, Evil, Neutral, Strong, Weak, Magical, Lucky, etc)
4. Allow users to choose which path/quest to embark on, and assign their character through the accordingly staged direction!
5. Always give them choices, in virtually everything about the game.
6. Allow each thing they do, being it talk to someone, fight someone, or kill someone to effect them as a character.
Using these examples, with your imagination will certainly add to the replay value of your game! Sure, doing some of these adds more to the developer's plate, but time is of no importance when it comes to dishing out good work here. Doing these will, depending on your creativity and imagination, not only provide them with seemingly unexpected challenges ahead, but may also keep them guessing as they progress!
The topic is "Replay Value". Now for those not in understanding of what Replay Value is, it's a common decision with creating a game(Regardless of specific classification on the type), the decision more greatly applies to single player games, as opposed to multiplayer ones really though.
So what is Replay Value really? Well it's nothing more then just the value of players, and it's fanbase wanting to play through it multiple times. In allot of cases, people play a game once through and never touch it again. Replay Value is basically the odds of placing different objectives, quests, goals into the project to further strengthening them to want to play it more then once(Who knows, maybe a third time is in order!)
What allot of people look at for this kind of thing, is the Non-Linear type of games. Why? Simply being that Non-Linear games have more freedom to explore, and in a number of cases provide multiple outcomes to. This is good for making them want to try it over to see the other outcomes(Curiosity killed the cat, but at least the developer is proud of their work!).
So exploring this thought multiple times over I have come up with some interesting and simply put ways to use Non-Linear, and BYOND's engine to add to the replay value.
1. Provide different classes/races, each with a different story setting.
2. Give the players freedom to express, and choose ways of interacting during quests, story sessions, or common citizen interactions!
3. Give specific outcomes depending on their statistics(Good, Evil, Neutral, Strong, Weak, Magical, Lucky, etc)
4. Allow users to choose which path/quest to embark on, and assign their character through the accordingly staged direction!
5. Always give them choices, in virtually everything about the game.
6. Allow each thing they do, being it talk to someone, fight someone, or kill someone to effect them as a character.
Using these examples, with your imagination will certainly add to the replay value of your game! Sure, doing some of these adds more to the developer's plate, but time is of no importance when it comes to dishing out good work here. Doing these will, depending on your creativity and imagination, not only provide them with seemingly unexpected challenges ahead, but may also keep them guessing as they progress!
Posted by Ollyseeya (Dungeon Master) on Saturday, July 11, 2009 03:52AM
- 32 comments
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#32 Kelto:
In my opinion, a great series which has something like this is called " The Elder Scrolls." Yeah sure, depending on how much you do it can or cannot have play through value. But from what I understand talking with characters DOES effect you and them in some way most of the time. Most people would usually play through once good then maybe play through again to see what it's like on the other side of the law. But the thing about it is, even after you beat it you wouldn't have to replay it!. You could almost always just keep playing and doing all the side quests.
In my opinion Games are getting worse and worse. More about Graphics than about Gameplay. Like, the fact that I enjoy Earthbound more than nearly every NDS game I own and it was for the SNES!. It seems like lately the only people making good games is Bethseda and Bungie one singleplayer game the other multiplayer.
Friday, August 28, 2009 06:00AM
#31 Acebloke:
Oh, over actually buying games, I think the internet has helped. Back in the day, I could spend up to an hour or two in a game shop looking at individual game packets (I didn't do this every week :p) and I might not buy a game for months looking at its packet each time. I did this with Zone of the Enders, knowing that it only selled for its MGS2 demo. In the end I did get it, and while it was a short game, I really honestly enjoyed it, and the games they made afterwards was really good quality and a lot longer. It paid off to wait until I was absolutely sure before I bought anything.
Now, I can go on youtube or their website and see the gameplay or the intros, I can tell within seconds whether I'll like a game or not.
In my eyes, I try to see it this way: If I can spend at least an hour for every £1 I spend, I've made decent use of it. I bought MGS4 for £9.99, the single player game lasted me roughly 15 hours in total in my first playthrough, and I probably spent twice as long altogether online, so I played roughly 45 hours; or 22 pence per hour.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 06:21AM
#30 Acebloke:
Forgive me, I haven't read the comments yet.
I don't believe you have to have a non-Linear game to express replayability, its just a lot easier in many ways to implement; but that doesn't necessarily mean that people will pick it up again.
I grew up on console RPG's, they are Linear in virtually all ways, with some being a direct line, others being more of a "choose this path or this one for the same destination", but I find these more enjoyable than open ended games for replayability in many ways.
For example, some Shining Force games has a system implemented in which every time you play, the enemies units have slightly better stats. It was perhaps a little too slow of a feature, your 2nd and 3rd playthrough wouldn't be altered much as the minor stat increases they did get would have been negated by your experiance playing the first time; you'd have needed to get to the 5th-10th playthrough for a real struggle; this was obviously too long.
Some grinding games, including some FF games and Tales of Symphonia, allows you to use some of your items/special abilities etc to cross over to your next game. This can quite often be enjoyable, especially if they are "level grinding" games, because you can replay the game casually and enjoy watching cutscenes and finding extras for things you missed or things they add in 2nd playthroughs.
Some games, like Grandia 2, offers nothing new in replays, and is about as linear as an RPG game can get; yet its probably one of the most enjoyable games I've ever experienced and probably one of the few games I've played more than twice.
Azure Dreams is a dungeon based game on PS1 that gives you nothing particularly different from restarting other than having to build up (as you can lose your equipment or store it, you can quite easily simulate it without restarting and starting the tower with new familiars), but occassionally I do anyway, despite it being virtually the same.
Modern, more open ended games which allow "karma" like Fable and Fallout only really gives 2, 3 at most gameplays. You can play a "Good" character, and a "Bad" character, and occassionally (although not very often/many people would enjoy) a "Neutral" character which isn't usually very well developed. Games like these are harder to replay, because you can quite easily switch sides with repeat actions in your first gameplay in order to do it the first time round; albeit that storyline bits you would have to replay for. I kind of struggle to play Fallout3 a 2nd time, which I thoroughly enjoyed and still play on my 1st character for extras + DLC's because I kinda know whats coming and what results are likely to be.
So I guess for me, a good story can make me play again without it necessarily having a different route; as I might read a book again. Yes sometimes you miss things in your first time round, or don't give it as much weight first time; or sometimes, you know exactly whats coming and you play/watch it anyway, because you just enjoy it. For more open ended, non-linear games, I think having LIMITS is better. If I CANT switch things over, or find it elsewhere, and it'd have a notable effect I'm more likely to replay it. Playing Pokemon to get a different "fossil" pokemon is not enough, it has to be stronger than that ;p
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 05:55AM
#29 SuperSaiyanGokuX:
I think my problem with watching movies (or reading books) more than once is that I generally do not miss anything, very rarely have any trouble figuring things out (no unanswered questions), and my memory is good enough that I remember it too vividly for too long for it to seem new another time through... (Yes, that all sounds like a bunch of egotism, but that's honestly how my mind works... It's very capable at pulling in info, processing it, and storing it...)
Comedies are one exception to this rule, though... I can generally watch something in this genre more than once in a shorter period of time (though still not ever that close together), because they don't rely on the storyline, really... They're just jokes strung together by the story... And even if I've heard the joke before, most of them are still funny...
Action movies are another exception, in some special cases... If it's something I really like, I can watch one of them again...
But for anything that relies on a plot (the more intricate, the stronger the effect), once I've seen it, unveiled the ending, unraveled its mysteries, etc. I just can't bring myself to view it again... The experience is no longer new, and no longer holds any power for me... I'd rather move on to the next unknown experience...
The same applies to games, roughly... If the gameplay is fun in itself, regardless of the plot, I can play the game over and over... I'm playing it for the sake of the gameplay...
But if a game relies on the story, once I've done and seen it all, I need to drop it for a long time, or it's just a bore the next time through...
Monday, July 13, 2009 11:00AM
#28 Tsfreaks:
Same here. I can only watch the same movie once every 10 years or so (if that). Books, almost never again but I slack on the whole book reading thing anyway. I suppose that has everything to do with our positions on replayability doesn't it. :)
I wonder if there are any game design answers to be had if you investigate this common difference between people. Seems obvious if taken at face value but it might be interesting to find out the specific reasons for this behavior.
I could ask, "Why do people watch the same movie over and over again?" but the obvious answer is to see the things they missed. I'd imagine others just get enjoyment out of seeing their favorite scenes time and time again.
The more interesting question for me is, why don't I watch movies more than once? It's hard to answer actually... it has something to do with the overall experience. I've experienced it so I don't have any desire to go back and do it again. The details aren't worth the torture of reexperience. I feel like it's a giant waste of time and just work.
Interestingly, a movie works perfectly for both types of people. Play it once or one hundred times. I wonder if "Replay People" and I mean the real Replay People can handle replaying the same game over and over if provided just a few minor differences or even none.
It would be pretty awesome if we could find out what peoples "Replay Tolerance" curve is. I think we could find out more by doing a poll on watching movies. The reason I'd consider using movies is because it avoids the "it depends on the game" factor. It might be more fun to answer a game replay poll though. I'd like to have someone set the poll up here on RPG but lets make sure we ask the right questions.
Here is one possible poll.
If you just watched a great movie for the first time, how many MORE times do you expect to watch it in the next 10 years?
- 20+ I watch most great movies over and over when they are first released
- 10+ I watch all the great movies at least once a year
- 5+ - I like revisiting the story every few years to keep it fresh
- 1+ - I might watch it after a really long period of time... perhaps with my kids when I have them.
- 0 - It was a great movie but I would never intentionally watch it again even though I might be forced to watch it again on a flight to Japan.
Please suggest a better poll or updates to this one if your interested.
ts
Monday, July 13, 2009 10:22AM
(Edited on Monday, July 13, 2009 10:34AM)
#27 Fugsnarf:
Yeah. I don't know how people can watch re-runs of a show over and over again.
Sunday, July 12, 2009 10:10PM
#26 SuperSaiyanGokuX:
Fugsnarf wrote:
> I suppose everybody has their own tastes. Some people read books, watch movies, or play games more than once. Others don't.
Of course this is very true... My wife, for instance, will watch a movie she likes whenever it's on, even if she just watched it a week ago (you know how some movies seem ot be on almost every single week on TBS or ABC Family or whatever?)
Sunday, July 12, 2009 10:09PM
#25 SuperSaiyanGokuX:
I actually have a very current example... In another broswer tab opened right as I'm typing this (and in fact, it's been open since I first read this post and joined the discussion) is a flash game called "Epic War 3" on Newgrounds...
Well, it has a "New Game Plus" option that was unlocked after my first play through...
And as I began a second run-through (with another "hero" character, which offers some extra starter units/abilities, and unlocks more units during play), at first I thought it was pretty neat that I got to play again, but still had all of the units/abilities from my previous run-through, and all of them remained at the level of upgrades that I had paid for on that first run... But then, as it turns out, the game is still incredibly tedious and virtually the same experience as the first time...
It's not a bad game (the first time through, anyways), but the strategy to win didn't change, and even the overall difficulty seemed to remain pretty much the same, even with my fully upgraded units held over from before... It's just become monotonous, and even though I'm trying very hard to force myself to keep playing through it to unlock and upgrade everything, I'm finding it to be more of a self-inflicted chore than actual fun...
Granted, the gameplay itself is relatively simple, and I'm not putting forth any special effort to make the strategy any more complex... You have a set of "cards" that you equip before battle, and your units spawn on the battlefield on their own individual time increments (up to a set population limit for each type of unit), and you have to direct them to the opposite end of the field to attack and destroy the enemy fortress, while battling enemy units that are trying to do the opposite... And during the battle, you have a few special abilities to use to help your men out (like shooting fireballs down on the enemy units, granting your units double damage, launching a special attack that sweeps the field and heavily damages/destroys all enemy units to clear the way, etc.)
Now, you can direct your men (including a "hero" avatar for yourself) to move forward or retreat, and they automatically attack anything in range... You can also direct them individually by unit type (so you can leave a defense behind at your fortress, and send an attacking party forward, or you can station your ranged fighters in the middle, and send your melee forward, etc.) but I've found that simply telling everyone to constantly charge forward (you have to keep clicking the command, so newly spawned units will join in the charge) while using any special ability that is currently charged (once used, each one has a cooldown/recharge period before it can be used again) results in very easy wins every time (in fact, using this method, no enemy units have ever even managed to get near my end of the field)
So the game itself has just become a pointless treadmill of clicking "Forward" over and over, and occasionally launching a fireball or Phoenix attack at any enemies that seem to need to be taken out with my assistance (ranged enemies are my usual targets for early destruction) And while that itself was fine enough for one playthrough, now that the novelty has worn off it's a huge bore on subsequent runs...
Sunday, July 12, 2009 10:04PM
#24 Tiberath:
Vermolius wrote:
> Is that how they spell route in Australia?
No, I spelled the word wrong. Do you have anything actually meaningful to add to the discussion?
Sunday, July 12, 2009 09:57PM
#23 Fugsnarf:
I suppose everybody has their own tastes. Some people read books, watch movies, or play games more than once. Others don't.
Sunday, July 12, 2009 09:42PM
#22 SuperSaiyanGokuX:
I guess that's where this mechanic fails to impress me... I rarely watch movies or read books more than once (at least not without a LOT of time between), simply because once I know the story, it ceases to entertain me (again, until enough time has passed that the story begins to become fuzzy enough in my memory; which can be a very long time, literally years in most cases)
I honestly don't think I've ever played a story-driven game through more than once... And even if I have, I don't imagine it was for the story, it was just because it had a good gameplay experience (which means that it wasn't tedious or so much of a grind that I even wanted it to be easier another time through)
Sunday, July 12, 2009 09:41PM
#21 Fugsnarf:
It makes it easier and possibly more enjoyable with less grinding. Chrono Trigger is a good example. I played it again just for the storyline and the ease of beating it again. I wouldn't play a difficult game over again just because I get everything back when I start. If it's got an exceptional story, why not?
Sunday, July 12, 2009 09:32PM
#20 SuperSaiyanGokuX:
If there's actually something to keeping your stats/equipment for another run through (IE it lets you access areas that were above your level the first time through, or otherwise opens up new game experiences) then there is merit to something like that...
But if it just boils down to "hey, I can beat X enemy in one hit now instead of two!" or even more generally only serves to make the game you just beat easier to beat again, then it's pretty pointless...
Sunday, July 12, 2009 09:29PM
#19 Fugsnarf:
Sun Knee wrote:
> SUPERSAIYANGOKUX,
>
> There is a game called Final Resurrection which has the chance to Replay the whole game again even though it has no story and has the exact same substance as the 1st time you play. Only difference is that your stat gains are better 2nd time round. Then you have to replay one more time for the best gains since there are a total of 2 resurrections, i.e, start from scratch with better gains twice.
>
> And it's still pretty popular.
There's actually something to that. I find myself more likely to replay a game which has something to the effect of a "New Game+" where you get to keep your stats from the game you beat or something to that effect.
Sunday, July 12, 2009 05:19PM
#18 Vermolius:
Tiberath wrote:
> "Player hording" provides such game time. As once you've played a game through taking one rout, you have y amount of other routs to take. As such, game time x must increase when game rout y does.
Is that how they spell route in Australia?
Sunday, July 12, 2009 04:01PM
#17 Foomer:
The number of stupids is rising, so its becoming more profitable to cater to them. Falacy figured this out a long time ago and made lots of money.
Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:12PM
#16 Zaole:
that's commercial development, not doing-it-for-free-because-of-my-passion development
Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:10PM
#15 Sephikus:
Zaole wrote:
> the general idea behind real game design is to not cater to the stupids
Apparently you haven't been paying attention to commercial developers lately Zaole. Since gaming has recently become "cool" a lot of the game companies have been dumbing down their games to cater to the new gamers who don't even qualify as casual gamers.
Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:09PM
#14 Zaole:
that's because the people who play it are retards who just like the idea of being stronger than everyone else
the general idea behind real game design is to not cater to the stupids
Sunday, July 12, 2009 11:28AM
#13 Sun Knee:
SUPERSAIYANGOKUX,
There is a game called Final Resurrection which has the chance to Replay the whole game again even though it has no story and has the exact same substance as the 1st time you play. Only difference is that your stat gains are better 2nd time round. Then you have to replay one more time for the best gains since there are a total of 2 resurrections, i.e, start from scratch with better gains twice.
And it's still pretty popular.
Sunday, July 12, 2009 09:44AM